Monday, May 16, 2011

Orientalism

Orientalism, in ideology, is an “othering” device. To be more clear, in a Hegelian binary, it was a way for “civilized” and “intellectual” Europeans to define themselves through a contradiction of a created lesser being. It defamiliarizes an entire continent into the unprivileged. “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’ (Said 1867). In every binary relationship, all the parts are quintessential for the construction of the identity of all the others. Edward Said says “[t]he Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience” (Said 1866).

These images and identities that are created in the ideology of Orientalism are found constantly in Western popular culture. A 1919 silent film entitled Broken Blossoms, but also went by names such as The Yellow Man and the Girl, relied heavily on the ideologies that arose within Orientalism. This movie was one of the first to feature yellow-face, which was a Western depiction of a person of Asian descent or at the time, Oriental. Orientals were considered uncivilized, exotic, passive, cheating, feminist, etc. For the most part, they are viewed as being backwards in relations with their Western counterparts. Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is another example of the film industry’s Orientalism. Under scrutiny, the film industry and advertisement industries continue this tradition as well. Take, for example, the film Prince of Persia starred Jake Gyllenhaal, or Rodrigo Santoro portraying Xerxes in the film rendition of Frank Miller’s 300. Both actors are not of Persian (Iranian) descent, yet they both were casted to portray roles of Persians. This might be overanalyzing Hollywood’s casting procedures, but it could be contributed to the idea that the identity of the other is still crafted by the self.

A Westerner portraying a person of Asiatic descent supports Said’s theory that “Orientalism is premised upon exteriority, that is, on the fact that the Orientalist, poet or scholar [or actor], makes the Orient speak, describes the Orient, renders its mysteries plain for and to the West” (Said 1882). This is to say that no person within the Orient actually aids in creating an identity for themselves. In the Occidental/Oriental dialectic, all mediation of the Oriental is overseen and controlled by the Occidental. The film portrayals, when analyzed, could be seen as silencing the voice of the other, restricting the “Oriental” from gaining a place in constructing their own identity. Othering is still a device used throughout all societies and lingers from the days of Imperialism.

Said, Edward W. "Orientalism." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Second ed. New York: W.W. Norton and, 2010. 1866-888. Print

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

The Body as a Battleground

Susan Bordo, in passage from Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, states that “[t]he body, as anthropologist Mary Douglas has argued, is a powerful symbolic form, a surface on which the central rules, hierarchies, and even metaphysical commitments of a culture are inscribed and thus reinforced” (Bordo 2240). This uses the idea that the body is a sign, and that its meaning is filled with the ideologies of its contemporary setting. She paraphrases Pierre Bourdieu’s and Michel Foucault’s argument that “[t]he body is not only a text of culture,” but “a practical, direct locus of social control” (2240).

This brings up the idea that image of beauty is perpetuated by the privileged side of the binary relationship between Man/Woman. To Bordo, “the discipline and normalization of the female body – perhaps the only gender oppression that exercises itself, although to different degrees and in different forms, across age, race, class, and sexual orientation – has to be acknowledged as an amazingly durable and flexible strategy of social control” (2241). To Bordo and many other feminist analysts, the beauty myth is a construct of a misogynistic and male dominated society. The man has created an expectation of what the woman should look like, and this has translated into a social aspect of control via beauty.

A person can definitely make this read when seeing certain models in advertisements, although there has been somewhat of a rebellion against a model idea of beauty. The restructuring of the Barbie© to reduce breast size and increase her waist can be seen as a way to remove an impossible standard of beauty among the impressionable minds of younger girls. At the same time companies like Dove have come out with a new campaign that uses full sized, or more “normal” body types to sell a beauty product.

Author Chuck Pahliunuk had a short story in his novel Haunted about a transsexual man who is abused by a room full of women for embodying a male’s view on female beauty. (I do not have the text on hand as I write this, so I am unable to quote from it.) This act could be interpreted as a female’s overt reclamation of their own beauty by attacking the standards imposed on them. It mirrors what Bordo has said about the feminine body with a male mind. Everything from the measurements of certain body parts to the make up styles to body language has all been an effort to appease to the male aspect of society.

The idea of sexism is a very complicated subject. Where is the reclamation of the body by it’s physical and metaphysical owner? This could come down to a reader response and semiotic interpretation of the sign. If the woman abides to the standards of beauty imposed about by the male aspect of the binary, is there any empowerment within that act alone? One can view the realization of the role imposed as a stepping stone to assuming power, or ideally, equality within the binary, although this dialogue will continue for as long as people assume the binary exists.

Bordo, Susan. "Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body." TheNorton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Second ed. New York: W.W. Norton and, 2010. 2240- 254. Print.